


I've been chasing the moon and the stars

by drywitticisms



Category: Lovecraft Country (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon Rewrite, Episode Fix-it, Everybody Lives, F/F, Femslash, Fix-It, Fix-it fic, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Canon Fix-It, canon? what's that?, post-episode 1x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27131780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drywitticisms/pseuds/drywitticisms
Summary: Christina catches Ruby attempting to steal the vial for Letitia and company, and this is how the confrontation should have went.Set directly after? (during? I don't know) the events of episode 1x10, "Full Circle."
Relationships: Christina Braithwhite/Ruby Baptiste, Ruby Baptiste/Christina Braithwhite
Comments: 52
Kudos: 128





	I've been chasing the moon and the stars

**Author's Note:**

> *peeks around the corner* Heyyy, guys! How am I doing, you may ask? Not great! I'm pissed beyond belief. And if you follow me over on Tumblr, then I'm sure you know the extent to my thoughts on that horrible finale. There will be more on that in the end notes. So, stick around to read my final thoughts.
> 
> The title and song/lyrics featured in the text comes from Tanerélle's "Nothing Without You."

_"You're my missing piece; I don't wanna live without you. You're my missing piece; I don't feel at home without you."_

  


"Looking for this?" Her voice struck through the silence of the dark, cold, wet basement.

Christina watched as her lover stopped in her tracks. She knew something wasn't right.

She had a feeling that something had changed.

She didn't want to believe it; but when she awoke to find herself alone in their bed, she knew what had happened. 

They had gotten to her. They had said something to make her turn away from her, to run away from her. 

How _could_ she? 

Didn't Ruby know that she was willing to give up everything to be with her?

Did she even **care**? Did she _ever_ care?

Christina choked her sadness down and forced the tears away. Forcing herself to unsteady feet, she went to the one place she knew she would find Ruby.

It was like a death march for Christina. And that's what this was - she was walking to her death, to the death of the most important relationship of her entire life.

She was walking to the thing that would ultimately break her heart and shatter her soul. She was walking towards the thing that would shatter the illusion of happiness she had been living in for the past couple of months. 

And she would find the one thing she feared since the very beginning, since all of this started. 

The thin veil of red clouded her vision but there was a niggling thought at the back of her mind yelling at her to slow down. To see through it and to see the truth. 

She wanted to believe that what they had was real, that what Ruby felt for her was genuine, that they could build the family they always wanted in each other. 

But then, Ruby just had to go and ruin it. 

She had to let the lie of family obligation blind her from seeing that Christina cared for her, maybe even loved her.

"I ...I was just-"

"Betraying me." She finished shaking the vial at Ruby, who simply stared at her completely ignoring the vial. "But this _is_ what you're looking for, right?"

She watched as Ruby unconsciously shook her head at her accusations causing Christina to angrily slam the vial onto the metal surface of her workstation. She'd been caught red-handed, and she was still unwilling to tell the truth.

Christina could see the fear and trepidation in Ruby's body as she watched her muscles tense and contract underneath her lingerie. She knew that Ruby was doing **exactly** what Christina feared from the very moment she subconsciously reached out for her in their bed and discovered that she was alone.

Ruby had been acting strangely ever since she came back from her trip to her mother's grave, but Christina didn't think too much of it. But then, something inside of her was telling her that she was completely missing something. She didn't want to believe it, but that feeling of suspicion grabbed her and wouldn't let go.

"What happened? What changed, Ruby?" Christina asked softly. 

"Everything. You removed the Mark of Cain from my sister!" Ruby declared.

"I was angry. They wouldn't give me what I asked for and I acted out of anger!" 

"So, you were planning on breaking your promise to me? Is that it? Is that your excuse?"

"Don't turn this around on me! I was livid and I wasn’t thinking clearly in the moment but I wasn’t going to do anything, but you didn't even talk to me. You didn’t even give me a chance to explain myself. You let your sister get inside of your head and poison your thoughts. She turned you against me.”

"Oh, and that's not what you're doing right now?" Ruby shot back.

"We've been over this." Christina exclaimed walking towards Ruby in a huff and stopping a mere feet away. "I have _never_ asked you to choose, but **she** did. She's asking you to choose right now by doing this, and you fell for it."

"Don't try to manipulate me, Christina."

"I'm not the one that's been playing you for a fool this whole time. I'm not Letitia. I've never asked you for anything, and all it took was **one** time." Christina replied sticking a skinny index finger up to emphasize her point, "One time for her to hustle you again and to make you doubt me. She's tricked you into doing her dirty work like she always does."

Ruby scoffed at her and turned away from Christina's bright, intense gaze. 

"All you had to do was talk to me, and I would have told you. If you did, then you would know I never had any intentions of hurting Letitia. It's Tic and it's only been about him."

Ruby said nothing before cutting her eyes back towards Christina. 

"So, what now? Are you going to kill me like she did to Dell? Or are you going to keep me in a magical comatose state like you did with William?" Ruby defiantly asked.

"What? Of course not! Why on **Earth** would I do that to you after everything we've been through?" Christina in an affronted manner, "How dare you even ask me that?"

"I don't know, Christina, but you just caught me trying to steal a vial of your hair and blood." 

Christina shook her head incredulously at the headstrong woman in front of her. 

"You know what hurts the most? Even now, you doubt me. Have I _ever_ given you any reason to believe that I would hurt you? Why would I do so now?" 

"You're only warm when you're William, so excuse me if I'm confused by all this and you. I can never be sure what your angle is, especially since all of this started. And then Leti comes to me and she tells me that you went back on your word, how do you expect me to think? To react?" Ruby yelled. 

"I would never do anything to hurt you or your sister. You should have just trusted me!"

"She's my sister!"

"Only when it's convenient for her." Christina angrily spat taking a few angry steps in Ruby's direction leaving little personal space between them. “Any other time, it’s dead radio silence. The minute she needs you, that’s when strengthening your sisterly bond becomes a priority for her.”

Christina's face was now a few inches away from Ruby's. She knew she was hitting below the belt, but she was exhausted with this conversation. It was the same conversation over and over again, and Christina wanted to put this thing to rest once and for all.

She could feel the steam of her anger beginning to fizzle out. Anger was quickly transitioning into sadness and hurt, and Christina couldn't stop it.

"You told me that you were my family. That's what you told me. Was all of that a lie? Did you lie to get me to let my guard down?" Christina choked out as she felt a knot form in her throat at the thought of Ruby not meaning what she said. 

It would kill her if Ruby didn't mean any of it. She so desperately needed her to say that she was wrong. Christina looked away from Ruby's eyes as her own eyes welled up with tears as she wondered if she were destined to roam this earth alone.

The only real family she had left wanted nothing to do with her, which she couldn't fault him for. Plus, he needed to die for her spell to work anyway so she never considered him to be a potential friend. At least not really.

So if Ruby lied to her, then she would have nothing. No one.

She would be alone **again**. 

"I didn't lie. I'm nothing like my mother **or** my sister; don't insult me in that way. I would never _do_ that. It doesn't matter how angry I am. I made a promise to myself long ago that I would never become like them."

"All I ever wanted from you was your love. I never wanted anything else from you." Christina said as a tear rolled down her face as she slightly turned her body away from Ruby while subtly wiping it away. 

Ruby sighed in response. 

"She's my sister and my weak spot." Ruby sadly stated, "Much like you, I grew up a sheep amongst wolves too. Both my mother and my sister were always looking out for number one and I didn't have a place with them nor did I find a safe space in them. I had to be the responsible one, cleaning up all of their messes over the years."

Ruby blinked and Christina watched as a tear fell from her lashes.

"So when I met you, I didn't think I was good enough. I just kept waiting for the catch. I just kept thinking there has to be _something_ that would make this attractive man want me. So, what is it? And when I found out you were William, everything fell into place for me. It suddenly made sense because I was never the one that guys wanted."

"Ruby-" Christina gently started.

"Let me finish." She said, "So, yes, I do admit it. Even now, I doubt that you truly care for me. Even now, I doubt that I'm really what you want and that you don't want something else from me, that you're not using me for your dastardly plan. And Leti knows these things about me - she knows what my weaknesses are. She just poked and prodded at the weak spot in me that always believed I had an obligation to her, to my family. She knew how to hit me where it hurt, and she's been doing it for our entire lives. Even as adults, she's still able to take advantage of my duty and loyalty to a fucked up family unit that's always been broken." 

At this point, the tears were flowing freely down Ruby's cheeks. Christina only knew about some of this; Ruby never talked about it much; things were too sore, too fresh, but Christina knew how to read between the lines of what Ruby wouldn't say. Until now. 

"What kind of hold does she have over you?" 

"We're family, Christina. You're there for your family even when they screw you over, even when they do the unthinkable and the unforgivable. That's what family is - being there when you don't want to be because you _have_ to be. You don't have a choice; you do it because you're supposed to."

"I don't believe that; I won't. You're my family now." Christina said reaching up to gently grab Ruby's face with both hands forcing her to meet her gaze, "That's what you said. And in our family, we don't do things for each other out of obligation and some misguided sense of responsibility. We do things for each other because we **want** to. There's _always_ a choice."

Rubbing the apples of Ruby's cheeks, Christina couldn't help but study Ruby's face. It seemed like every time she looked into Ruby's eyes, everything in the world was right again. Looking at Ruby made her day better, and it made her entire body feel warm just for the simple fact that she knew she was the only one that Ruby looked at like this. Ruby smiled through her tears as she nodded in agreement before pressing her forehead against Christina's causing Christina's hands to drop from her face.

Christina leaned into the touch closing her eyes in the process. She knew they would be okay just as long as they remained a united front.

They were an unbreakable unit. She wouldn't let Ruby's dysfunctional, codependent family take her away from her. She would fight tooth and nail to keep Ruby in her life, and she worried about the person who tried. 

Ruby was hers. Ruby was Christina's chance at happiness and she wouldn't let her cousin's girlfriend stand in the way of that. 

"I have you now. Isn't that right?" Christina teased playfully while still greedily needing that confirmation and validation.

"Always."

"So, what are we going to do about your sister expecting you to spy on me?"

"We'll figure something out. Maybe we can even find another way to cast the spell that doesn’t involve us having to go to them for _anything_. I want us to make a clean getaway as quickly as possible before they track us down and demand we help them with something else that doesn't involve us. Whatever we decide to do, we're going to leave this place behind and create our own eternity. Just you and me and the family we choose and find along the way."

"Immortality, spending the rest of my existence with you, and creating a family with you sounds like a dream." Christina said with a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, let's talk about the trainwreck of that finale. First and foremost, Misha Green is a horrible showrunner and I will never watch another project with her name attached to it ever again in my life. I hope she never works again. Before the willfully obtuse makes their assumptions, I'm going to give you **my** plain thoughts. I never thought Ruby and Christina would ride off into the sunset together living happily ever after. I never thought that would actually happen, but I never thought Ruby would die either. I couldn't fathom the idea of both of them dying, but that's exactly what happened. With Christina, I assumed she might kick the bucket based on her positioning in the story and I accepted it. I never thought for a SECOND that they would kill Ruby. Sure, she's in a 'coma' but she's essentially dead. 
> 
> Ruby Baptiste was a symbol for a lot of people. She was important to so many of us, and we never got a fat, dark skinned, Black woman being loved and romanced like this before. Someone like Ruby had never gotten that treatment in any piece of media I've ever seen, and we were excited that we got to see something like that with her. But then, the writers had to fall prey to colorist, fatphobic, homophobic ideologies to end her story. The writers were never planning on doing right by Ruby. They always planned on allowing Ruby the opportunity to have this one chance of happiness; but they also always planned on punishing her, and in turn, sending a message to women that look like Ruby that our happiness isn't a priority and that it's not accessible no matter how hard we try and no matter how often we do the right thing. Ruby Baptiste Deserved Better. Period. I don't care what anyone says, but Ruby deserved happiness and she deserved the same protection her thinner, lighter skinned, biracial sister got but the writers couldn't help but fall back on unoriginal, lazy, racist stereotypical tropes to juxtapose the two. They couldn't help themselves. They just had to do what other non-Black creators/writers/showrunners before them did. Which is worse because this is something that came from the minds of a predominantly Black female writers room. 
> 
> The only time we were allowed to see Ruby and Christina kiss in their real bodies, the writers then unceremoniously had Christina kill Ruby right afterwards. Think about how gross this B.S is. This entire time they used Christina's male 'counterpart' to romance Ruby; and the ONE time they gave us what we wanted, they do it in their real bodies right before Christina kills her off-screen. Let's not get into the fact that Ruby sacrificed herself to save her ungrateful, selfish sister who didn't give a flying flip that her sister died trying to do something _she_ asked her to do. The writers painted Ruby as a villain. And every week, they continuously gave fans reasons to see her as the villain so even the writers never truly protected Ruby. Once she died, they doubled down on their writing choices and subsequently blamed Ruby for her death. The fans rejoiced and agreed; they claimed that Ruby somehow deserved her death. She somehow deserved to die the way she did because she wanted to access the power and privilege that was given to her on a silver platter. She somehow deserved to die because she dared to live for herself and not for anyone else like everyone wanted a fat, dark skinned, Black woman to do. She dared to not be anyone's mule and the fans hated her for it. And the writers sat back and laughed about it and called us 'weirdos' for shipping Ruby/Christina in the first place.
> 
> All I know is this - all Black creators/writers/showrunners aren't created equal, and not all of them have the interests of Black characters in mind, especially Black female characters, especially Black female characters that look like Ruby. All in all, this show was a resounding disappointment. The treatment of its LGBT+ characters & storylines was sloppy from the get go. This show was more suited for straight people, because this show was hell-bent on demonizing & villainizing their LGBT+ characters. So, I'll still be here writing fanfiction for them because I have elected to ignore the fuckery I saw on my screen on Sunday night. There is still so much story that can be told with these two, and I'll do my due diligence to keep writing for them as long as I have a muse for it. But if this show gets renewed for a Season 2, I will **NOT** watch it nor will I support it. I don't care if it opens the door for Ruby to come back, because I simply don't trust these writers anymore. The only way I'll watch another season of this dog crap is if there's a different showrunner and a different set of writers at the helm. Otherwise, no dice. Respect my decision, and don't attempt to change my mind because it's already made up. So, that's all I got. As always, tell me what you think.
> 
> **Ruby Baptiste Deserved Better.**


End file.
